Mothership/Development
The mothership has been switched back and forth from a one-of-a-kind unit to a normal unit, multiple times since its unveiling in May 2007.Karune. 2009-02-18. StarCraft II Q&A - Batch 49 (page 4). Battle.net StarCraft II General Discussion Forum. Accessed 2009-02-18.2007-05-19. Gameplay Trailer. Blizzard Entertainment. Accessed 2007-08-12.StarCraft Legacy Staff. 2007-08-09. BlizzCon 2007 First Protoss Impressions. StarCraft Legacy. Accessed 2009-05-18.Browder, Dustin (Cavez). 2008-02-01. Re: Karune, current mothership status? Battle.net StarCraft II General Discussion Forums. Accessed 2008-02-01.Pardo, Rob and Zetaras Xal'Kurat. 2008-06-29. WorldWide Invitational 2008: Pictures, Presentations, Videos (StarCraft II Panel: Evolving Design) SC2 Blog. Accessed 2008-06-30. In the current build, only the Queen is 'unique' (only limited to 1 per Zerg player at any given time). The Thor is currently the Terran's primary ground to air mechanized unit. More than one Mothership can also be built, though they are quite expensive in cost. Karune. 2008-03-24. Unique?. Battle.net StarCraft II General Discussion Forum. Accessed 2008-03-24. The mothership is hard to test, as it is high in the tech tree.1. It's a Terran vs. Zerg game. I promise nothing on what week it will come out. You must continue to suffer and wait. 2. I don't know much about these. 3. We have Void Ray, Phoenix, Mothership, Carrier, Warp Prism, Observer. Mothership moves slowly, can teleport to any Protoss building, can do huge damage to a single target with Vortex and cloaks everything nearby on the ground (including buildings). Mothership is build-limit-one. This is done primarily for balance reasons. You use her as a base defense that can be anywhere you want in a flash. Sometimes you push into an enemy base with her. Testing on her remains a pain because she is so high-tech we don't see her in a lot of games. Right now she is reasonably cool, but we are not in love with her yet. 4. I cannot. Please discuss. Cavez, I know your lurking. Battle.net StarCraft II General Discussion Forum. Accessed 2009-02-27. The mothership is able to survive a direct hit from a nuclear missile.Karune. 2008-04-24. StarCraft II Q&A Batch 36: ScreenCraft. Battle.net StarCraft II General Discussion Forums. Accessed 2008-04-24. The mothership could be cloaked with the null shield in earlier builds.You can cloak your Mothership with your Dark Pylon's Null Shield. In this case, the enemy can't see anything in your base without a Detecting unit. Cydra. 2009-03-02. Bue: Question. Battle.net StarCraft II General Discussion Forum. Accessed 2009-03-02. Visually, the mothership only underwent a single revision during development. After the initial creation and some minor proportion adjustments, it stayed unchanged for a few years. When it came round to the final art pass, it was mainly to make smoother surfaces and more distinct objects thanks to the improved polycounts.2010, SC2: Mothership. Deviantart, accessed on 2011-07-20 Previous Abilities Any abilities that do not make it into the final mothership will still be available in the game editor.Karune. 2007-09-25. Mothership Abilities. StarCraft II General Discussion Forums. Accessed 2007-09-26.Browder, Dustin (Cavez). 2008-02-01. Re: Karune, current mothership status? Battle.net StarCraft II General Discussion Forums. Accessed 2008-02-01. Time Bomb has been added and removed to the mothership frequently. It was last removed as of April 2009 Time Bomb is now known as the Temporal Rift and is cast by the High Templar. Plasma Surge is no longer in the multiplayer version of the game, but will still be in the editor. The Dark Pylon is now known as the Obelisk - primarily because it no longer cloaks units and no longer provides pylon power/supply. This change was mostly due to balance, since it is relatively easy to spam Dark Pylons everywhere and instantly have a Psi Storm recharge point to decimate incoming forces. Karune. 2009-06-08. Lack of EMP = more Archons? (post 11) Battle.net StarCraft II General Discussion Forum. Accessed 2009-06-09. Beta Development File:Mothership SC2 DevGame6.jpg|Mothership arrives over a pylon. File:Mothership SC2 DevGame5.jpg|Time rift. Heart of the Swarm The mothership is an upgrade to the mothership core in multiplayer.Blizzard Entertainment. 2012-06-08. Heart of the Swarm Update - New Videos (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm - Battle Report (Protoss vs Zerg)). Blizzard Entertainment. Accessed 2012-06-08. It gains the Stasis ability, which freezes air units in place for 20 seconds. Vortex now affects only ground units.Blizzard Entertainment, Teamliquid. 2012-06-09. Heart of the Swarm Update. Blizzard Entertainment. Accessed 2012-06-09. In addition, Vortex will only target one non-massive unit, and will kill that unit.Kaivax. 2012-12-05. Beta Balance Update #8 – December 5, 2012. Heart of the Swarm Beta Discussion Accessed 2012-12-05. The mothership was removed altogether from multiplayer prior to BlizzCon 20112011-10-21. Blizzard Cuts and Adds StarCraft II Units. IGN. Accessed 2011-10-21., but returned by June 2012. The Cloaking Field ability was also removed but was later reinstated.Blizzard Entertainment. StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm beta. (Activision Blizzard) (in English). 2012. Legacy of the Void The energy cost of mass recall for both motherships and mothership cores was decreased in Legacy of the Void. The developers noted that protoss struggled in base defense, so the cost was reduced, making it easier to defend multiple bases, and to play more aggressively in the early/mid stages of the game.2015-05-11, Legacy of the Void Beta: Balance Update Preview - May 11. Blizzard Entertainment, accessed on 2015-05-21 In Patch 4.0, the mothership core was removed, so motherships were returned to being built from the nexus. As Mass Recall was moved to the Nexus, the mothership was given a separate ability named Strategic Recall, which functioned the same but did not share a cooldown with Mass Recall. References Category: StarCraft II development